A tech start-up founded by two former ANZ bank employees claims it has become the most popular health practice management software in Australia, as it closes a $2.5 million capital raising before international expansion.

HealthKit founders Alison Hardacre and Lachlan Wheeler say the company has more than doubled its market size this year, going from 10,000 practitioners using its platform to more than 22,000 worldwide, 19,000 of which are in Australia.

The company plans to use the funds it has raised to set up a European headquarters in Ireland. It would not reveal who had led the $2.5 million raise, beyond saying it came from existing investors.

Australian Securities and Investments Commission documents show that Adidem Group, the investment company of Graeme Wise – the man who brought The Body Shop to Australia – is a substantial investor.

Ms Hardacre told The Australian Financial Review that HealthKit's customer base was growing at 1 per cent to 5 per cent each week and its next target was to have 100,000 practitioners using the software within the next two years.

Ms Hardacre said most competitors internationally also had "niche plays", such as focusing on booking or billing for one segment of the health market.

"Maybe you can build a sustainable business in a market like the US doing that, but I don't think you can do that globally," she said.

"We don't want to be a niche player, we want to be a $1 billion global business."

The company is setting up a European office in order to better serve customers in the region, who now have to wait an average of six hours for a response to inquiries.

Efficient approach

The start-up also raised $1.6 million in funding early last year, but most of its growth has been organic to date, with 70 per cent of growth being generated by word-of-mouth and a customer acquisition cost for doctors of 47¢.

"We've had to be lean," Ms Hardacre said.

"We knew we had to prove out the platform play a lot more in order to attract the greater levels of funding. We thought we'd have to raise $8-10 million to be global, but we've been so efficient we found we could do it for a much lower cost.

"Compared to where we've been we're now well capitalised, but we expect to do a much larger round sometime next year having proven the product even more."